Paul in London

The process of dying in a Swiss assisted suicide clinic is detailed, efficient and bureaucratic as told in An Instinct For Kindness , currently showing at the Trafalgar Studios. Chris Larner's monologue based on his real-life observations and experiences in dealing with his former wife illness and eventual death is a sad tale but also has enough observations and surprises to keep you engaged. At 70 minutes long it is not a long journey. And Larner's ability to keep things funny and give a fresh take on pain, processes and the emotion of it makes for an enjoyable and contemplative night out at the theatre. This production was first at the Edinburgh Fringe and so it is good to see that it is now touring. It runs at Trafalgar Studios until the end of April. There are post show discussions as well if you like that sort of thing. @Johnnyfoxlondon and I decided to pass on the Rabbi who was speaking after the show on the night we went in favour of a boo... listen to ‘Assi

Thanks to the nimble efforts of @FerozeIyer , I found myself with a ticket to Abigail's Party , the latest sell-out show at the Menier Chocolate Factory . We went for the full Abigail experience which included '70s themed dining while being entertained by people queueing for returns in desperation to get a ticket. While the amusing menu served as a reminder why heart disease features prominently in this piece, I suspect the joke was on us for eating it. It is a wonderful production of Mike Leigh's play with and excellent cast. The star of the show is really the authentic recreation of suburbia 1970s, which for both Feroze and I brought back happy memories of our childhood - complete with leather look lounges. The cast which includes Jill Halfpenny as party host extraordinaire Beverly and Joe Absolom as Tony. The story is fairly straight forward. They drink, they smoke, they drink, they argue. They drink some more, smoke some more and argue more. What its all about

In October it will be fifty years since The Beatles released their first single ‘Love Me Do’. While scary to think that anyone now who remembers the sixties is ready for retirement (or near death), London’s Prince of Wales Theatre will welcome Let It Be , a new West End production featuring many of The Beatles’ greatest hits from September 2012. The show is a theatrical concert and the first West End show with full rights to the Beatles' catalogue. The Prince of Wales theatre is also the site of the fab four's legendary Royal Variety performance, featured in the above clip. Tickets are on sale now. Mamma Mia, currently playing at the Prince of Wales theatre, moves to the Novello early September.

Spring came out in the past week... And on the weekend it seemed appropriate to head the parks with the rest of London... Playing frisbee semi-naked looked like fun...

The Sunshine Boys opens at the Savoy Theatre towards the end of the April and a new picture of Richard Griffiths and Danny DeVito is out of the duo... Neil Simon's classic play is about Al Lewis (Griffiths) and Willy Clark (DeVito), a vaudevillian team who grew to hate each other. They are reunited for a television special which is a cue for grumpy old men-type shenanigans. Griffiths and DeVito certainly look the part, albeit with possibly better dental hygiene than real vaudeville stars... It starts previews from April 27...

This weekend at the Store Street Gallery in Bloomsbury is the second exhibition of contemporary printmaking, promoting it as an art form. It includes a variety of prints by artists Lisa Denyer, Alexander Gough, Damien Hirst, David Hockney, Max Lowry, Dénes Maróti, Will Martyr, Andy Warhol and Giulia Zaniol . Venetian artist Zaniol's prints (pictured right) uses a two-plate technique that means no print is exactly the same and the results are quite varied and interesting. The exhibition concludes Sunday, but be sure to linger around Store Street to sample the other exhibitions and independent stores in the neighbourhood. An oasis in Bloomsbury and a civilised short walk up from Covent Garden or the British Museum...  

I caught a charity fundraiser for The Sound of Mumbai this week. It is currently available to watch online on More4 within the United Kingdom and tells the story of a slum school choir performing the songs from  The Sound of Music in a major concert hall with a full orchestra. At the heart of the documentary is the optimism of the young singers who have so many hopes and dreams riding on the one performance. The success of the documentary has led to the start of Songbound which is a music outreach initiative that uses singing to reach out to India's most impoverished children through collaborative projects with schools, choirs and professional musicians. Donations can be made through the website. Boo impressions follow... listen to ‘The sound of Mumboo’ on Audioboo

Stephen Sondheim's Grand Guignol musical-opera Sweeney Todd is back in the West End. This time it is with the versatile (and somewhat unrecognisable) Michael Ball in the title role and Imelda Staunton as Mrs Lovett, his partner in crime. The tale has been told in many forms, and the last time it was on the West End was in John Doyle's wonderfully claustrophobic production where the cast doubled as the orchestra. This time around, this Chichester Festival transfer provides a slightly more traditional staging of the production with a grand set and elaborate set pieces. Of course, it is still probably Victorian London as the story does not make sense in any other period, but you could be forgiven with the odd car, costuming and set decoration that it could also be the 1930s...

In Basildon by David Eldridge at The Royal Court is a brilliantly funny play about a dysfunctional family and an inheritance. Len is on his deathbed and the family gather to say goodbye. His two sisters Maureen and Doreen have not spoken in nearly twenty years. Doreen's son Barry is hoping to get the house as his inheritance so he can start a family. The scene is set for greed, grudges and entitlement against the backdrop of the city of Basildon , a rather bleak looking town created in post war England to house the growing population from London (and featured in the above promotional video).

The King's Speech was originally intended to be a play rather than a film, and it you now have the opportunity in London to see it that way. It is a smart looking production with an excellent cast that keep things in focus. The performances by Charles Edwards as the King and Jonathan Hyde as Lionel Logue are central to this and you are on the edge of your seat whenever they are on stage. Despite projections and visuals which make the piece still feel a bit cinematic, it is the dialogue and the banter between the two men that are key. On one level, the play elaborates and enhances some aspects of the story going beyond what the film covers. But on another level it is also labours them. The film seemed sharper and more credible. It is a pity that perhaps the stage version didn't re-imagine the story as a three-hander between George VI, Elizabeth and Lionel Logue. The focus of the stories blurs with the cast of supporting (and possibly) superfluous characters.Winston Churchill, t